Thursday, April 09, 1970

April 1970: Paul McCartney quit The Beatles

Wonder how many old & new Beatles' fans recall that Paul quit the group in April 1970?

It was not exactly a shock.  

The Beatles had not toured since 1966.  Their personal relations had soured.  The four guys had developed too many interests outside of the group.  I guess that the break up was inevitable.   

Again, it was not really a shock when Paul McCartney made it official:
"The legendary rock band the Beatles spent the better part of three years breaking up in the late 1960s, and even longer than that hashing out who did what and why. And by the spring of 1970, there was little more than a tangled set of business relationships keeping the group together. Each of the Beatles was pursuing his musical interests outside of the band, and there were no plans in place to record together as a group. But as far as the public knew, this was just a temporary state of affairs. That all changed on April 10, 1970, when an ambiguous Paul McCartney "self-interview" was seized upon by the international media as an official announcement of a Beatles breakup.
The occasion for the statements Paul released to the press that day was the upcoming release of his debut solo album, McCartney."
The new album was most unusual.  It was literally a "solo" album because McCartney played every instrument.

Looking back, it was not that good of an album.  Frankly, McCartney should have hired a producer and a band, specially a drummer.  It was too much McCartney.  It sounded like a demo tape desperately looking for a producer to dress it up.

Nevertheless, it was a best seller and a couple of songs about his love for Linda were really good.  (They were married 29 years until Linda died of cancer in 1998).

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